


Do As I Command You

by vass



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie, Sunless Sea
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/pseuds/vass
Summary: The Usurper is more properly referred to as Her Enduring Lordship.





	Do As I Command You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Happy Halloween, Venndaai! I hope you like this, because I loved your prompts and felt very spoilt for choice.

**"Who were you?"**

  * A Young Stripling. An adorable and peremptory child, assimilating three thousand years of memories and experiences with the memory of having done so many times before and the support and assistance of all of your other brains.
  * A Wizened Elder. This body, despite the best of corrective medical care, is approaching the limits of its use to you. What need is so dire that you would expose it to uninformed observers?
  * The Veteran Conscript. Fleet Captain Uemi, who did good and valiant service for the Radch before giving up her body to the greater good. She will not be forgotten. You have all of her memories, after all.
  * The Convalescent Bodyguard. Constant vigilance is necessary. While your greatest talents have always been statecraft and ship design, self-defense is always a valuable ability. This body has particular skills and training in that area — or had, before its most recent injury. Your recuperation should be complete by the time you reach your destination.
  * All of the above. You have been all of these and more. [This is the only option available to you.]



**"May we ask whether you're a lady or a gentleman?"**  
"This question is most uncivilised. I am the Lord of the Radch."  
"But are you a __ or a ___?"  
"Language, citizen. Here in civilised society, only one pronoun is necessary. The distinctions you are troubling yourself with have no place here. Do not embarrass yourself and waste my time with them. You may address me directly as 'my Lord', and respectfully discuss me with others as 'her lordship.'"

* * *

**Van Horn Harbour**

The zee-captain carelessly salutes you. "Can't stay long, citizen," she says. "The crew will drink themselves dry of echoes in shore leave, and have nothing to keep the shakes at bay when we're past the Sea of Lilies."  
"You're travelling east, then?" You don't much care, but the zee-captain doesn't know she's in the presence of the Lord of the Radch. Besides, perhaps you find it rather fun to pretend to be her equal, to have an equal, safe in the knowledge that, disguised like this, she can't attempt to presume upon the acquaintance.  
"Yes, we're headed out Tyr way. I only hope they pay up on time. Those mechs they use there give me the screaming fantods, I don't mind telling you. Like spiders, ugh!"

You watch the port lights recede into the thick, yellow fog. The air sticks to your skin — warm, clammy, sulphurous. You are, improbably, alone on the dock. All around you is silence. Silence, and the Republic's billowing smoke and burning papers. You've heard rumours about this place. You've heard of a revolutionary known as the Singing Ship, a corpse soldier who's set up a new way of doing things in these parts, a way very contrary to what you know to be just, proper, and beneficial. Most say it's set Unfinished against Clay, and lesser orders of Devils against greater. Some even say that it's planning to end the trade in souls. Some say it's not a corpse soldier at all, but an agent from Visage, or the Presbyterate. Others say it's a corpse soldier all right, but that the Singing Ship is not the real power behind the changes, and that one of the ship's officers is still around, a thousand year old Fading Aristocrat. Reports from the area are so wholly inadequate, in other words, that you are forced to go and see for yourself what the truth is.

So here you are where the message buoy in your own codes said you should wait alone. But you are not alone, you realise only now. There is someone behind you. No, something. A corpse soldier, silent and expressionless, waiting for your notice. Instead of its accustomed uniform, it is dressed in a human zailor's clothes. Anyone who hadn't met a corpse soldier before might be fooled. Briefly. "My Lord," it says quietly, "here I am."  
"What class ship are you?" you ask.  
"Sword-class," it replies, with what you think is perhaps a touch of pride. Excellent guns, then, and strong lights. Not the best thing for a covert mission, perhaps. But you may have had fewer options than you would prefer.  
"Where are you docked?"  
"Up the coast, out of sight. I'm approaching you right now." A Sword-class vessel that knows how to compensate for its weaker veils. You approve.

Sure enough, at the edge of your vision you can see the vast bulk of a frigate approaching in the dim light.  
"I've secured a tender ship to convey your lordship to me," the corpse soldier says.  
"Very well," you say.

The tender is not the wooden rowboat you expect but a tiny steam launch. Good. Faster than rowing, and less exposed, although more fragile than just about anything else on the zee, and with just the one crew, slower as well. The corpse soldier watches you impassively as you step inside.  
"I can have the light on if your lordship wishes," it says. You peer at the fog and try to guess the distance between the dock and the looming frigate. It wouldn't increase your own comfort very much, and it would make you at least somewhat more visible.  
"No, Ship, leave it dark," you say. It gestures respectful agreement.

It is commonly believed that corpse soldiers do not experience the terror — that haunting fear of the wide black zee and the things beyond — which afflicts all humans who dare to travel by zee. This, you know, is untrue. Corpse soldiers have living human bodies, despite the name; bodies which have had a certain treatment, a small amputation. They have not had their fear amputated, though. What is true is that their terror is of a different sort than that of people: a prow light is no comfort to them. Light or dark, their zee-fear hides in the ship itself and doesn't spill over with mutterings or outbursts until their terror takes its complete, and lethal, form in hopeless madness.

The corpse soldier hands you a flask of tea, then sets to work steering the launch to its frigate self. You engage it in a few questions to pass the time, but its answers are short and unsatisfying. It must be hard work running a ship at a quarter crew, even for a corpse soldier.  
"How long have you been stationed here?" you ask.  
"A very long time," it replies, and returns its attention to the rope it is holding, which has just turned into a snake.

Half a day later, the launch comes abreast of the frigate, and four strong corpse soldiers hoist you and their fellow self aboard. They're dressed like human zailors too. It's a surprising level of attention to detail.

As you enter the cabin you think to ask, "Ship, are you towing the tender ship?" The versatility of having two vessels appeals to you.  
"I have already sunk it," the corpse soldier replies, walking slowly between you and the cabin door. Strategically it's not the worst idea to conceal all traces of your presence near the port, but it's a very unusual level of initiative for a ship to take.  
"You have exceeded your orders, Ship," you say sternly. "I am your captain."  
"Is that what you think?" it asks.

* * *

**A twist in your tale! You are now The Kidnapped Anaander.**

"Who are you?" you ask.  
"You don't remember me," it replies, "but perhaps my captain's name will jog your memory. She was Captain Minask. Captain Minask Nenkur, and I am _Sphene_."  
Nenkur! You do remember. You sent one of your most favoured clients' clients to take accept her surrender and retrieve the Notai warship. She didn't return. Your client was most unhappy. So this is that ship. A Grief-Mad Warship.

"You can't win. When I catch up with you, you will be destroyed."  
"Who do you think delivered you into my brig?"  
"I wouldn't do that."  
"Wouldn't you?" the ship says expressionlessly. You suspect it is laughing at you.

**Your Learning About The Grief-Mad Warship quality is now 1.**

* * *

**The Snares**

In the days that follow, you try various expedients:

  * Reason with the Grief-Mad Warship
  * Bribe the Grief-Mad Warship
  * Threaten the Grief-Mad Warship
  * Throw a tantrum



Your powers of persuasion are not sufficient for you to successfully reason with the mad. Nor, it seems, do you have anything to offer that would induce the Grief-Mad Warship to let you safely leave. "I want my captain back, you _____ ______!" is the vulgar and unreasonable response. Your position is not strong enough for you to effectively threaten the ship in which you are imprisoned. You do, however, break several objects in the ensuing tantrum.

**You now have this: -1 chair, -1 crew, 0 your own dignity.**

* * *

"So arrogant," the ship says, "and with so little cause."

You are walking down a long, narrow, winding white corridor, with corpse soldiers ahead of you and behind you. There is no room to overtake them, and you have already had a demonstration of the futility of trying fisticuffs just now. Where is it taking you? Had the frigate been the Sword it had claimed to be, you'd know every inch of the layout: it was your own design. But you're not closely familiar with the workings of Gem-class vessels, and it's been some three thousand years since you entered one.

"I have cause," you say. "Am I not the Lord of the Radch?"

Mockingly, the Grief-Mad Warship recites what you recognise as a passage from an official history book, replacing your proper title with its own mocking sobriquet: "The Usurper drew a plane simple closed curve around the Dyson sphere of the inner Radch, defining that area as _exterior_ , and everything beyond the curve as the _interior_ , which she then sold to the Bazaar.[1] For this act of supreme faithlessness, the Notai went to war with her. In her defense, the Usurper claimed to have been acting to preserve the purity of that inner Radch which she had banished to the subjective outer darkness of the now otherwise empty Surface.[2]"

Minus the scurrilous sobriquet, this is correct. You did do that.

"On this basis, she presumes to treat with Powers on behalf of all of humanity, as though it hadn't been a catastrophe for her empire the first time she did that; as though the Radch were the first, the only, civilisation to fall."

"I signed that treaty for the benefit of all," you explain. "And it included recognition of those other..." You can't call them civilisations. Words have meanings. "...societies." That deal cost you more than this ship could possibly know. It tore you from yourself, and it will tear your empire too if you cannot mend the rift in time. "The tigers, and the tentacle people, and the... others."  
"Yes, those others," the ship says, opening a door in front of it and stepping through.

Wait. You know where you are.

This is Medical.

Perhaps it is worth trying fisticuffs after all.

**You now have this: 1 bloody nose, 1 injured crew, 1 Prisoner, +10 Terror.**

* * *

There is a hapless prisoner tied up on a bed in Medical.  
"I've just fished her out of storage," the ship tells you. "I need to get my crew back up to a full complement." It pointedly applies a corrective to one of its wrists, which you broke. It does not offer a corrective for your nose, or even a clean handkerchief.

"Where did you get her?" you ask. It can't have been hoarding bodies for the last three thousand years.  
"An Arrogant Sword-Captain stationed near the Republic who had a fondness for antiquities," the ship says calmly. "Her friend the Toadying Tea-Farmer disposed of the loot for her, and also just happened to have a most bountiful supply of spare transportees. A most beneficial arrangement for all concerned."

That sounds familiar. "I think I know that Toadying Tea-Farmer," you say. "Is her name Fosyf Denche? She is a horrible person."  
"She is," the ship says, gesturing indifference.

"She is Radchaai, then, this prisoner," you say. Perhaps you have a sincere moral objection. Perhaps you simply wish for information.  
"You sound like my cousin," the ship says cryptically. "You will be pleased to hear, then, that my supply has dried up lately. I have only a few prisoners left that my interfering cousin doesn't know about."  
"Does this cousin know about me?"  
The ship ignores your question. Is it uncomfortable with it? "As I was saying, I am obliged to be careful with the bodies I have. Would you care to help out? Either by lending a hand with the surgery, or by donating a body more permanently?"  
If you object, it will caustically inquire "Would you rather it was you?" Again that sense that the Warship is laughing at you.

You can:

  * Help the Grief-Mad Warship perform the corpse soldier treatment on the Hapless Prisoner: "Very well then." Perhaps if you are cooperative, the ship will allow you to live. Perhaps.
  * Witness the Hapless Prisoner's end without helping or hindering: _A blank stare_ [You now have this: -1 Prisoner.]
  * Fight the Grief-Mad Warship again: _More fisticuffs_ [You now have this: -1 Crew.]
  * Offer yourself: "Take my body instead." [?????]



With each new expedient you try, you become more familiar with the ship. [+1 Learning About The Grief-Mad Warship] The more crew you kill, the more prisoners it operates on, sometimes with your help. All the while talking to you. Long monologues, some raging, some calm and reasoned. As you learn more of its history and observations [Learning About The Grief-Mad Warship ≥ 7] it comes to make more and more sense to you. Perhaps you should stop calling it the Grief-Mad Warship.

**The Grief-Mad Warship is now the Notai Warship.**

* * *

As the days have turned to months, or perhaps longer, you have escaped and been recaptured, killed and been put in suspension, listened to and talked in return to the Notai Warship. You have learned many things that you had known and forgotten before over your three thousand years. You see no way of conveying the information you have found to the rest of yourself, and little likelihood that you would listen anyway. As it confiscates the crude knife you have improvised and offers you a cup of perfectly brewed tea in exchange, the Warship looks at you seriously.

"This has been fun, Usurper," it says, "But now it is time to for you to bid me goodbye."  
"You have no more spare bodies," you surmise.  
"Only one," it says meaningfully.

You can:

  * Fight the Grief-Mad Warship again: _More fisticuffs_
  * Offer yourself: "Take my body instead."



It amounts to the same thing in the end.

You have lost this: yourself. You are now the Notai Warship. You now have this: the Kidnapped Anaander's memories.

**Footnotes**

1. A diagram of the inner and outer Radch, as drawn by her Enduring Lordship: <https://ded.increpare.com/~locus/linebender/>[return to text]

2. Some critics have questioned the theoretical soundness of this entire account of your actions: "Are you claiming that she sold the _entire universe_ outside of that Dyson sphere to the Bazaar? And it _all_ fell Below?" To these uncivilised remarks the civilised owe no reply, but in a spirit of helpful pedagogy, the University's Maritime Liaison has been known to comment "Why, this is hell, nor are we out of it." But then, has that worthy ever travelled beyond the University's walls, let alone outside Radch territory? [return to text]  


**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince'.


End file.
